Thursday, March 30, 2023

16,184. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,380

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,380
(In dreaming of something new, try the old first)
I just came back from what seemed like
another realm. That was from reading 
a book. I'd recommend it; it's a biography
of Elon Musk, by some Ashlee Vance guy.
It put me in another mind, thinking about
lots of things. Back in 1972, I think it was,
I read a trendy book that was just trending
then, called Future Shock, by Alvin Toffler.
He's dead now, but the curious spot that the
book caught me in was hypnotic. I still don't
know what it was that grasped me so about it,
and it probably deserves another read. But it
would never be the same. Situations and 
scenarios change.
-
It's like that with ideas too. For some 10 pages,
I was on this book, then, another 20 pages, I
was all turned against it, what he stood for as
portrayed, what he was saying, and how he 
acted. It was having nothing to do with me,
the way I am, my views of the same things.
I can understand a California techno
environment having overwhelmingly all
the factors of control and intensity, but why?
Musk's reasoning brought nothing of value 
back to me. I've long ago grown tired of the
sort of person who has to guage everything
against money. To them, money becomes
everything  -  when in reality money is NOT
value and all it ends up doing is denuding
value of having any value. Any idiot can
'make' money (make, in this instance, being
a wrong and insincere word for the use).
-
In a way it's kind of a shame to see someone
like Musk get all the accolades for, essentially,
steering himself in the wrong direction, albeit,
I agree, with verve, ingenuity, intelligence and
drive. But little else. Five kids and 3 marriages 
later, cars, spaceships, and a few other projects
later, he's sailing now, yes. Made it to the big-time
but only with the tangible things to show. The 
book makes for a good read from and interesting 
few decades of action. But an action that stayed
tethered, when it should have been flying high
with a kind of less material intensity. He's kind
of a space-Picasso.
-
It's a scant moment when people get inspiration
for something that doesn't include lucre or a return,
money in expectation of achieving riches and a
certain, composed, 'greatness.' It's all arranged for
that, but the true outlier is the Picasso like charmer 
who can actually make a new world without any of
that. 
-
Instead of seeing life as blindly spectating, it
can be said for certain that Elon Musk, from his
early youth on, was suspect  -  in my view, of 
course. I can't, frankly, place my interest nor
fate in the hands of a video-game brat, a man
whose current principles revolve around 'games',
and who references his entire life through the
promises of tech, how things work, how they
can be sped-up and altered, how 'people' can be
used as productivity tools, etc. It's just not my
field in anyway. I do not need to colonize Mars.
His SpaceX ventures lead me nowhere. The 
crux of the matter is in how he can say he'd 
be wanting not just to send people and to
colonize Mars, in completely artificial and
 -designed environments, all manned and 
replenished by space travel going on
constantly (of course this is all BS based 
on space-load and profit, which would 
have to come first, and which apparently,
but first re-design people more 'fit' for that 
colonization, to wit, genetically manufacture
a rwce of permanent colonizers, a small coterie
of Mars-dwellers who would still somehow
call themselves Humans, but based on forms
of supply-line living and encampments based'
upon idealized, and artificial, conditions.
-  but automotively and space-wise, arranged 
by his leveraging public monies, government
contracts, and stock and trade deals. Yes, for 
nonce, it's all working, but it's a house of 
dreams and a precarious timber-ready 
geek's dream.
-
We each are, in a nutshell, what we are, and 
there's not really much that can be done about 
it. The self-help people and the actualization 
folks would have a bookstore fantasy with 
this one. I can see it now, rows and rows of 
'colonization section' books portraying 
everything you never needed to know, 
nor  care about, all the while delivering 
Humankind another step along the way 
to controls here,  anarchy in-between, 
and a complete dictatorship there. 
Iron-Hand madness.
-
I can see it now  -  a large roomful of PTA 
Gifted Program mothers bragging about 
their little Johnnies and Janies, who, although 
probably autistic and gifted, want to grow up 
to go to Mars and help colonize the dumb 
future. With dense emptiness, no values, 
and little reference to anything else of 
Human Civilization which  -   face it   
Jane and John  -  is really all you ever 
get or deserves, and I'm not so sure 
about that last part.
-
'For Musk, the call to ensure that mankind
is a multi-planeary soecies partly sems from
a life richly influenced by  science fiction and
technology. Equally it's a moral imperative
that dates back to his childhood. In some form
this has forever been his mandate...to sooth
an existential depression that seems to gnaw at
his every fiber. He sees man as self-limiting
and in peril and wants to fix the situation.
The people who suggest bad ideas during
meetings or mke misakes at work are
getting in the way of all of theis and slowing
Musk down. He does not dislike them as
people. Its more that he feels pained by their
mistakes, which have consigned man to
peril that much longer. The perceived lack
of emotion is a symptom of Musk sometimes
feeling that he's the only one who grasps
the urgency of the situation. He's less sensitive 
and less tolerant than other people because the
stakes are so high. Employees need to help
 solve the problems to the absolute best
of their ability or they need to get out 
of the way.'
-
This is also vainglory, complete egotism,
madness, vanity, and a simple drive for
completely and psychically-driven materialism,
stupidity, wastefulness and control over others.
As I see it, three families later and five alienated
children later, prove me out. The man should
designing garbage trucks.



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